"Dublin had the same number of bodies behind the halfway line as we did"

The Tribesmen have had to rethink their tactics following last summer's defeats to Roscommon and Kerry and have come up with a more defensively-solid approach, which has served them well thus far in 2018.

"Look, people have heard my response to this on numerous occasions," Walsh told RTE. "A lot of it depends on what's up against you and the type of game the opposition bring to you - we have to pin-point where we think their strengths and weaknesses are.

"We're here to do a job, not here to apologise to anyone and to me a lot of it is coming out of lazy journalism and punditry without doing their proper homework.

"We analyse all the games and Dublin had the same number of bodies behind the halfway line as we did in the league final. People jump on it and when they hear lazy punditry the public buy into it. We can't listen to that, just do what's best to the team."